


Lost

by AnotherRose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy - Freeform, Kidnapping, Memory Loss, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, hermione granger/harry potter - Freeform, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-06 01:42:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16822582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherRose/pseuds/AnotherRose
Summary: In 1981, Voldemort is betrayed by his followers signing a Treaty. One of the stipulations in the treaty is for the banishment of Muggleborn wizards and witches. The treaty was too late for the Potter family, Voldemort slipped his men and left one passing curse to his men and their children.Hermione is an ordinary fifteen year old school girl when they kidnapped her. When she returns a year later without her memories, she knows she has lost not only a year of her life but something important to her. She has no idea what she's in for.





	1. Chapter 1

AN: I haven't written anything in years, but thought I'd like to have a go at it. This story is told mostly through Hermione's perspective and she doesn't have a lot of information to work from. Her life has very much been a muggle existence, but if this goes the way I'm pushing for it to go, she develops her magic and will have it. I do have a plan but I'm not inclined to give everything away immediately. I don't like to beat my readers over the head with themes but I am attempting to work some into my writing and I have an idea for my ending, if I can make the characters do as I'm told. And I'm trying to remember that all of their characters will have changed a little in world where muggleborns were excluded. Please be gentle. Last time I was writing, I got put off by some rather mean spirited. I haven't posted anything on here recently because I didn't have enough for a full story, but I think I've got something that I'm likely to finish. 

**November 1st 1981**

“And here by this day forth, all muggle-born wizards and witches will identified young and magically restrained. Those already initiated into wizarding society are offered clemency. The rest can’t miss what was never rightfully theirs to begin with.” Black reads article in the Daily Prophet on the agreement secured with the last vestiges of Voldemort’s followers. He falls short of the end of the article, his anger too great. What did his friends die for? What did his Godson become an orphan for? “Unbelievable!” He throws a tantrum in Lupin’s flat as his friend watches quietly.

The Death Eater’s had betrayed Lord Voldemort, but they didn’t know that killing the Potter’s wasn’t the worst of his dark acts Halloween. But they will find out soon enough.

**June 7th 1995**

“There she is. Curly hair and a focused eye.”

Watching across the square to a girl coming out of a building in a school uniform, Lucius smirks. His house-elves have been watching her for some weeks and he only saw her this morning for the first time when she was leaving home.

“Outstanding academically but socially isolated.”

“I suppose she’s attractive enough… for a mudblood. But what makes her stand out from other’s?” His son asks him.

“The ministry has been called for assistance for this one dozens of times for accidental magic. She is a very powerful witch.”

“Still a mudblood.” Draco grumbles.

“We can muddy ourselves with a half-blood, that is true. But we would still no long be purebloods. Would you prefer mediocrity or raw power for our future generations? If she had been introduced to wizarding society, she would have been a real threat to our Dark Lord.” Lucius smirks as Draco digests what they would mean for his heir to inherit from such a magically gifted witch.

His eyes go back to the girl in the school uniform being shoved by another girl in uniform, down the road from the all girl’s school. The two wizards watch from a distance with interest. She has thick, curly hair captured in a dutch braid down her back. The uniform unintentionally defines her tiny waist and lean legs. Just like the rest of the girls, the warm weather has pushed them all to remove their jumpers and cardigans. Her skirt modestly reaching knee length, one knee high sock has fallen down but the other is firmly in place. Holding her book bag in her arms, she faces the girl who pushed her with stormy eyes. She says something to the girls that the wizards can’t hear from this distance. An argument breaks out but she is clearly outnumbered.

“The muggles sense her power and are afraid.” Lucius says assuredly based on observations and prejudices about muggle society. He remembers what he was taught of the muggle witch trials.

“What will they do?” Most of Draco’s knowledge of muggle society was taught from the same period his father is thinking of himself. It is a fixed point in history where their society diverged from muggles. “Do you think eventually they will burn her at the stake?” He finds himself a little worried for her. It had never occurred to him until he watched this fight break out just how outnumbered the mudblood’s were. How vulnerable she looks.

Three girls pummel her to the ground and then a crowd gathers around her, blocking her from the wizard’s view.

“I don’t believe they still try them for being witches these days. But it seems they identify and mistreat them all the same.”

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“First we’ll need to wear muggle clothes. We must leave. Our disillusionment charms will wear off soon.”

**June 15th 1995**

It is a Baker Day on a beautiful sunny day. At nine thirty in the morning, Hermione walks out of her two bedroom, two floor flat in the north end of Kensington, London. It would be faster to take the tube but it is a lovely day out and the Natural History Museum doesn’t open for another half hour. In a month, she will have an entire summer to wile away and she is feeling good about her prospects.

Her summers are her chance to explore topics beyond the scope of what her teacher’s had restricted her to. Typically her essays lose marks for attempting to cover the topic too broadly and going excessively into detail at the same time. Mostly because that had been exactly how she had gone about learning any subject. Very broadly and with great detail. Why the teachers insist on such short essays, Hermione will never understand. Why must there be restrictions on length?

A busker is setting up around the corner from the museum’s and she thinks that she will go back to see what he is doing at lunch time. Early bird tourists mill about, but most of them won’t be arriving in earnest for another hour or so. London traffic is at full swing and the police presence is quite heavy. It suggests the IRA have made a threat. She hesitates turning around and going back.

In her minds eye, she sees the truck parked next to a solicitors office explode in a ball of fire and glass blowing out all around the street and everyone nearby cut down. She can feel the heat of a short brush of air through her hair and brief compression in her chest. And then she is brought back to a particularly sunny day in London and the traffic and people milling about. There were two bombings in London in February. But more acutely, she remembers the Bishopsgate bombing when she was thirteen. Her mother was taking Hermione to her hairdresser to cheer her up when she stopped at Barclay’s bank to take out money. Not twenty yards away, there was a huge explosion. Hermione’s ears had rung for days afterwards but she was otherwise unharmed.

Afterward, girls at school said only one person had died, but it felt like a lot more than that. Her memory had become nagging voice in the back of her head. She couldn’t forget it. Hermione reminded herself that there are wars happening all around the world. She could remember the Iraq war and the Bosnian war. There are currently wars happening in the Congo and in central Asia. She is just a school girl that happened to witness one bombing, while there is real suffering going on in the world.

Deciding not to be silly, life has to go on, she presses on. When she was little, they evacuated King Cross for a terrorist threat. She tries not to be antsy but dying buried under rubble is a remaining fear.

When she reaches the museum, she pushes aside her fear and goes inside. If she were with her mother, she would ask to pay to see some of the passing exhibits, but she settles for seeing the same ones she has seen before. It is soothing and it has been at least six months since she was last here. In that amount of time, there are often changes to see. A skeleton of a cretaceous period Archelon is on loan in a quiet corner of the museum. This is why it is good to get down here before the crush of tourists show up. The ones that are here, wouldn’t know that the turtle isn’t normally here unless they read the label. They aren't so readily drawn to it. Hermione admires it’s size and design. She can imagine what it would have looked like and would love to reach out and touch it.

“That’s enormous.” A young man’s voice startles her.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she nods. “Yes.” And returns her eyes to the incredible skeleton.

“This is how you spend your holidays?” He interrupts her again.

Surprised he is still talking, she wonders if he is trying to strike up conversation. That very rarely happens to her, but usually the only strangers who really try to talk to her are young men. It’s a probability. He is handsome, but she detects a certain arrogance that irritates her.

“Yes.” She says, defying what she assumes is an attempt to mock her.

His eyes sweep up and down her bare legs and then her chest. As though she were hardly dressed. Hermione dresses rather conservatively for girls her age. Her high waisted jean shorts are a tad short and her crop top reaches the top of them, revealing the occasional line of skin. But her cleavage is thoroughly covered. A small bag hangs from her shoulder with her lunch and a can of lilt.

He meets her eyes with an appreciative grin. “Draco Malfoy,” he offers her his hand in greeting.

Distrusting, she shakes her head. “It’s nice to meet you, but I’m afraid I have people waiting for me, Mr Malfoy.” She uses his last name to enforce a distance between them.

“Who?” He challenges, as though he knows she isn’t.

Now she is becoming suspicious. Is he stalking her?

“My boyfriend.” She flushes at the lie.

“You said people,” he says with amusement and moves closer. She feels his presence blocking out her surroundings. “And now you say a person.”

“With his friends.”

“Why would he leave his beautiful girlfriend here and go off with his friends?”

This isn’t working. Hermione is aware that she is a terrible liar and this bloke has her number called. But worse, she is becoming abundantly aware that she is attracted to him.

“And why would he allow someone to leave all those bruises on you? Or did he do that?”

The bruises are ongoing harassment from Angie and her friends at school. Hermione’s continued existence has been a source of never ending offense to the girl.

What does she make of this boy? Because he certainly isn’t a man. Others that have approached her have been heavier handed in their approaches. Not that boys approach her all the time. Just that when they do, she is so awkward and handles it so badly, they leave quickly enough. Mr Malfoy seems to be taking a more genuine, if somewhat lecherous, interest in her.

“You’re a terrible liar.” One side of his mouth pulls up in a lopsided, confident smile. There is a certain kindness about it. “Your mother taught you not to talk to young men?”

“Strangers.” She corrects him. “When I was little, I was taught not to talk to strangers, but I suppose I’m a little old for that rule. I don’t talk to young men because… well I suppose I’m not any good at it.” She admits wryly. Why is she telling him this?

“Why don’t we start over?” He suggests and holds his hand out to her. She puts her hand out and instead of shaking it, he kisses the back of her hand. She blinks in shock.

“Draco Malfoy.”

“Hermione…” she barely manages.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he grins and releases her hand.

Other patrons watch with amusement and she blushes wishing to blend back into the background again.

“Would you do me the honour of joining me for lunch, Hermione?” He practically purrs her name and her heart beats faster and butterflies erupt in her stomach for the first time in her life. He waits for an answer and she stares back at him wide eyed. With a predatory smile, he tucks her hand around his elbow and guides her away. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

A large part of her is telling her that this is a bad idea. So many things could go wrong. But no one has ever made her feel this way before. Hermione wonders as she easily allows him to lead her away and she mutely listens to him chat about the places he would like to take her to see. Plays, operas and ballets.

“My parents take me to musical on the West Side.” She tells him.

He pauses and smiles pleasantly down at her. “Which ones?”

As they walk out of the museum, she notices a man with white blonde hair and a similar face to Draco watching her with bemusement. Her recital of all the musicals her parents have taken her to falls to a stop.

“Is something the matter?”

The man disappears into the crowd.

“No…” she smiles at Draco. “I just… never mind.” And he picks up their conversation easily.

The café around the corner would usually be a crush of people but he already has a reserved spot. It strikes her as odd but she doesn’t bring it up. Before she can take her seat, she takes her leave to go to the toilet.

In the bathroom, she splashes water on her face and looks in the mirror. What has come over her? Why is she doing this? Has her constantly isolation from kids her age finally gotten the best of her? The boy out there is a real toff. A really handsome toff. She should put a stop to this. Drying her face off, she returns to take a seat and he stands quickly to pull her seat out for her. “

That’s very old fashioned.” She flushes. “I’m not exactly lady like and I don’t have any titles and I’m not an invalid.” She points out shyly.

“The men in your life have clearly failed you.” He says smugly.

“Why is that?”

“If you felt cherished, you would never question why a man would pull out your seat for you.”

“You think I should be cherished?” She chuckles at the thought. Her parents cherish her. Otherwise she hasn’t much in the way of men in her life who aren’t related to her.

His nod in answer leaves her scrambling for a response.

He has gone ahead and ordered tea for them both. Her mouth feeling dry, mostly from the conversation, she mixes in a dash of milk and brings it to her mouth. It smells of freshly mown grass, peppermint toothpaste and apple blossoms. A strange scent for tea, but she needs something now.

“It’s hot-” he attempts to warn her and he is right. It burns her mouth and throat, but desperate for a distraction from his attentions, she drinks is quickly anyways. At least it isn’t hot enough to scald her.

Instead of the tea helping her, she feels even more flushed and unsettled. He is the most beautiful man she has ever seen and she feels incredulous he is sitting with her. The truth strikes her core.

“I love you. How…” She declares, confused by the flood of emotion. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him.

“Yes, I should imagine so.” He says smugly. “Shall we order food or would you prefer my hotel room?”

Her heart skips a beat. Every part of her loves his suggestion. “If it pleases you but… I don’t. I haven’t even kissed a boy. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She admits. Hermione wants to please him so much.

He drops a five pound note on the table, not asking for the cheque. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. I’m sure I’ll handle it.”

Taking her by the hand, he calls a black cab and she waits to see where he takes her to the Savoy. She barely takes any notice of her surroundings. Hermione’s world zeroes in on the beautiful young man leading her around. It feels as though everything is happening too fast but not fast enough.

A door shuts behind them and he drops his mouth to her and gives a long, slow kiss. She clings to him as though he were a lifeline. When he lifts her up, she instinctively wraps her legs around his waist.

“Yes.” She murmurs. She wants this more than anything she has wanted before.

She feels a luxurious bed at her back and their clothes seem to disappear.

“What?” She asks but he kisses her and she is lost in the kiss again.

As he settles between her thighs, her hips buck up against him with urgent need. Leaning on his elbow, he reaches between them and lines them up. There is an uncomfortable moment as he enters her. He oddly explains the hymen to her. As though a girl in this day and age wouldn’t have known. But she ignores his words, too focused on the feel of him stretching her. Incredibly aroused, long before they made it to the bed, she climaxes only a few thrusts in and he follows close behind her. It was incredible! It takes fifteen minutes before he is ready to go again and they experiment with finding new ways to please him. She can’t get enough of him.

**October 12th 1996**

When a particularly large truck splashes through a puddle right next to where Hermione is walking along the pavement, she closes her eyes and winces. She expects to be soaked through but nothing happens. She looks around and sees a familiar blond boy standing across a street in an alley.

“Draco?” Her minds supplies. Her heart stops and he smiles warmly at her.

It has been four months since the police found her disoriented and wandering around Chelsea. The hospital had said she had had a baby not long ago and were threatening to charge her with covering the murder of her newborn. It had taken a lot of work to convince investigators that she didn’t have any memory and they would never be able to prosecute. Her memories go only so far as having sex with a boy called Draco Malfoy in the Savoy hotel. The hotel corroborated her story as far as they could.

No one really knows what happened. She lost a year of her life and a baby she never knew.

Now the boy is standing across the street from her and smiling. A bus passes by, hiding him from view. And just like that, he is gone again. Did she imagine him?

“Draco!” She screams, her voice hoarse with emotion. Does he know where her baby is?

She runs into traffic to find him. Tires screech and horns announce their profound anger.

“Get out of the fucking road, you stupid cunt!” A man yells at her.

“Sorry,” she chokes out without looking back and runs to the alley. She doesn’t see him but keeps on running with a tiny hope she will find him. The alley twists and turns and comes to a dead end. Heart in her throat and ringing in her ears, she knows she lost him. If he was ever there at all. “Draco?” She sobs, clutching her book bag to her chest and wearing her dark red coat over her school uniform. Leaning back against a brick building, she raises her head to a dark, overcast sky begging for clemency from whatever punishment is being brought down on her.

“How do you know Malfoy?”

Startled by a new voice in the alley, she yelps. A boy around her age dressed in the uniform of teenage boys of most western countries that year, jeans and jacket with hooded jumper. He has messy dark hair and wears round glasses.

She swipes at her eyes, embarrassed to be caught crying. “I don’t.” She says bitterly. “I should, but I don’t.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Why should I tell you anything? I don’t even know you?”

His expression softens and smiles sweetly at her. “I didn’t even… Sorry about that. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to introduce myself. I’m Harry Potter.” He offers her his hand.

Looking suspiciously at his hand, her first instinct is to tell him to get stuffed. But this might be her first real lead to getting her memories back. Accepting his hand and takes note that he doesn’t kiss the back of it like Draco. Of course, he doesn’t. He is normal. “Hermione Granger.”

“Nice to meet you Hermione. Would you like to go get a coffee?”

“No!” She says with alarm. Seeing his confused response, she shakes her head. “Last time I went off with a teenage boy for a drink, I went missing for a year.”

At first he is stunned and then his expression darkens. “Did Draco Malfoy have anything to do with that?”

“Maybe? I don’t have a memory from after the hotel.” She blushes. “I’ll tell you want you want to know if you’ll please, just tell me how to find him? I need answers.”

Empathetic eyes gaze at her and she feels as safe as she had with Inspector Jones. The woman had been on her side from the beginning. Arguing that Hermione came from a supportive home and wouldn’t murder her own child to cover it up from her parents.

“I’ll tell you everything I know about him and do my best to force a meeting.”

Hermione’s heart skips a beat with hope and she rushes into her story with abandon. This is the closest she has gotten to Draco in so long and she can feel it in her bones that this boy really is going to help her. She’ll give him anything and everything he needs to know if it will get her the information she needs.

Her words almost roll into one, she speaks so quickly but she can’t manage to slow down. “I was at the museum when this bloke our age started talking to me and I tried to get rid of him because I go to an all girl’s school and I don’t know how to talk to boys but he didn’t go away. And I don’t know how he got me to go to lunch with him but we left and I just went off with this stranger and then we were drinking tea and I felt strange and then we were at the Savoy and having sex and I hadn’t even kissed a boy before and then I woke up in the police car. The hospital said I had had a baby and I’d been missing for a year but no one could find my baby and I don’t know what happened and then just now I saw him! I saw him, Harry! And I want to know what happened to me and if I have a baby, I want her back!” The water works start back up and he pulls her into a hug and kisses the top of her head. She should stop this boy from physically contacting her like this, but instead, she melts into Harry and clings to his coat. It has been at least a month since she cried so hard. She thought was she was getting over it but it only took seeing Draco once to rip the scabs off the wounds. The grief for a baby she can’t remember and wouldn’t have thought she wanted but years for is the most acute of all.

“I think he has my baby. I have a gut feeling she’s alive and I think he took her and I want her back.”

Once she has calmed down, he takes a deep, calming breath.

“Malfoy comes from a very rich, wiz-” he cuts off and smiles and she watches with intensity. “Wicked, blueblood family. In my experience, he was ruthless and dangerous. As I’m sure you’ve realized, he probably drugged you into bed with him. I went to boarding school with him and he isn’t in Britain very often. Word got out this past year that a group of old families like the Malfoy’s have been having a fertility crisis. I expect he raped you-“

She slaps him and then stares at him with shock and horror. “I didn’t mean that! I’m sorry. I just.. When you said the R-word… it felt like you were attacking me.” She did the same thing when one of the investigators had asked if she had been raped.

“Yeah, I expect he probably… conditioned you react that way.”

“Conditioned?”

“His family have their ways.” He says resentfully.

“Why would they do that to two fifteen-year-olds? It doesn’t any sense?”

“I can’t answer that yet. But I’ll find out.” He says it with such gravity that Hermione actually believes Harry.

**December 14th 1996**

Christmas lights are strung around and it is getting dark out. Hermione wants to give up her seat on the bench at Clapham Junction railway station but he told her on the phone exactly where to wait. A quiet part of her fears this is a trap. These are friends of Draco and he is some part of a human trafficking ring and she is going to regret this. There was never a baby and the hospital was mistaken. But in her gut she knows there is a baby. She can feel the child exists even without any clear memory of it. She can smell it sometimes. She remembers in the hospital how full her breasts were and how they still leaked milk. The doctor said she must have still be breastfeeding for weeks if not months. What is worse? That there was a baby and she lost access to both the baby and her memories of it? Or that she had imagined it all and she was losing her mind? Shouldn’t she have stretch marks on her belly? She has the same stretch marks on her hips since she developed them around age thirteen. But the doctor had some young women escape them. There was a darkening line from her belly button to her pubic area that has been gradually getting lighter. She had been told it was another indicator of a recent pregnancy.

So her baby is out there somewhere with strangers and she has no idea what to do about it?

Lost in her own thoughts distracting her from the cold and her surroundings, she is startled by someone standing directly in front of her. She looks up and sees Harry again. Hermione swallows thickly.

“I thought you’d lied to me. I investigated the Malfoy’s and it led me to Wiltshire but I couldn’t find a house. Just like the police said. And then you didn’t call and I thought…”

He presses a newspaper into her lap.

The newspaper is called the Daily Prophet and there is a photo that moves! A photo of a plump baby, not a newborn like she sees in her dreams. Older and looking seriously at the camera. With curly blond hair. The title reads: MALFOY HEIR HAS BABY WITH MUGGLEBORN

She looks up at him. Where does she begin? “She’s a he?” She laughs and tears of joy well up and she covers her mouth with her hand.

Harry smiles sweetly back at her and Hermione jumps up and throws her arms around his neck. Her heart is soars out of her chest and she feels like there isn’t anything she can’t do!

“Oh my God! Where did you find this? Where is he? Do you think the police are already there? Oh my God! I can’t wait to show Mum and Dad!”

She feels him stiffen in her arms and then gently presses her shoulders back from him.

“Please, sit down for this.”

“Harry? What’s wrong?” Her stomach drops and she doesn’t think she can handle this. How could she go from feeling like she can conquer everything to feeling like she can’t handle the truth so quickly?

He waits, looking at the bench. Obediently, she takes her seat and he follows.

“What I’ve done here, is entirely illegally. I could spend the rest of my life in prison for showing you this newspaper.”

Her eyes drift to the moving photo. It shouldn’t be physically possible. The print is old fashioned in style but the moving photo is incredibly futuristic. It has today’s date.

“You’re aliens?” She asks with confusion.

A slow, wide smile takes over his face. He shakes his head no and presses on.“Me and Malfoy are wizards.” He gives her a moment to digest that information before he pulls out a stick. A wand, her mind provides the name for it. Like magicians use. He flicks his wrist and a tiny light flickers on at the end and then turns off. Then looking over at the platform, he swishes the wand and rubbish on the ground beside the open box rubbish bin levitates up and lowers.

“Wizards?”

He nods at her question. “I live in a small society of witches and wizards. Malfoy comes from the purebloods and they were cursed with infertility. The only way they can have children until the curse is broken is with muggleborn witches.”

“Muggleborn?”

“You are a muggleborn witch. A witch who doesn’t have magical people in her ancestry but was born with magic. The Statute of Secrecy and the amendments from 1981, state that you can’t be instated into our society unless one of your parents comes from a magical bloodline. The problem for the Malfoy’s and family like his, is that they aren’t willing to live in your world to have a child with you. They technically didn’t break any wizarding laws.” She opens her mouth to argue but he continues. “Ethics. They lack all morals and ethics, but none of our laws. The first law is that you can’t know about any of this. As far as our Ministry of Magic is concerned, they ‘borrowed’ you and returned you unharmed. Telling you about all of this, is a major offense. The Malfoy’s are in a lot of trouble and I knowing what I do, I can’t sit by and do nothing. I’m going to do by my best to get Phoenix back to you.”

Her heart clenches. “Phoenix?” Her fingers drift over the picture on the newspaper with yearning. She chuckles. “What an odd name.”

“Malfoy went on record that it took a lot of negotiating to come to an agreement on the name with the mother.” He bites his lip. “You can keep the newspaper, but you can’t ever show anyone.”

“But my parents!”

“I’m sorry!” He pleads with her. “I’m taking a big risk coming here.” He glances around furtively and then becomes alarmed and holds his warned, pointing at someone.

“Draco!” His name is wrenched from her throat.

He holds his hands up in surrender at Harry.

“Malfoy.” Harry says his name dangerously.

“You don’t want any aurors or dementors showing up because we couldn’t keep our wands in our pockets.” Draco muses.

Harry doesn’t put his wand away but lowers his hand.

“I need to get my son out and to someone more competent than Dumbledore.”

Not buying it, Harry watches Draco suspiciously. “You think I’m more competent than Dumbledore?”

“Less trusting at the very least. I need someone that will protect him as though he were his own. To do what I can’t until we get through this war.”

All of the air is sucked out of her lungs. She doesn’t remember standing up but she stumbles back to sit down. “My baby’s in a war zone without me?” It is the most horrific thing she has heard in a long time. “How could you-”

“It wasn’t up to me to have a baby with you and it wasn’t up to me to send you back and it wasn’t up to me to keep your baby at the manor.” He tells her with sad eyes. “I could overlook my parents faults until my son was dragged into it. It wasn’t an accident that Phoenix is in the Daily Prophet. I slipped Skeeter the picture and an anonymous letter on Malfoy letterhead with a Malfoy seal.”

Hermione pulls herself back to the present, paying close attention to Harry’s skepticism. He knows Draco a lot better than her, so she decides to lean on his intuition. Clearly her intuition had failed because she went with Draco the first time she met him.

“Why should I trust you?” Draco rolls up his sleeve and displays black tattoo that writhes on the inside of his arm. She sucks in a breath of alarm.

“I knew it.” Harry gnashes his teeth at Draco. His grip tightening on his wand.

Remaining cool and calm, Draco nods. “Don’t trust me. At least for the most part. I’m a servant to two masters.” His eyes flicker her way and back to Potter. “I’m marked. I can’t run. I can’t leave. It’s over for me. It’s not over for Phoenix and it’s not over for Hermione. Father thought he could keep us safe, but if I’ve learned anything in all this, it’s that the only way to keep them safe is to keep them as far away from me as humanly possible.”

The Dark Lord has set up house at the Manor.” He explains bitterly. Judging from the look on Harry’s face and the name, this should be devastating news. It feels as though a vice is clamped around her heart and is tightening. “To stay alive and to keep my parents alive, I obey him. Or at least I did right up until he brought up my son. I followed in my father’s footsteps and he followed in his father’s footsteps.” A low current of rage hovers around Draco.

The passion he feels about protecting their son is reassuring. She doesn’t know if she wants to slap him or hug him. Hermione mostly doesn’t want to make an enemy of the man who is her best hope of getting her baby back.

“If this is a trick, I swear to Goderic I’ll feed you to a cluster of acromantula’s.” Harry warns Draco spitefully.

“Would you want your child at the Dark Lord’s mercies? One imperious curse and he could make me end Phoenix myself.”

“No!” Hermione shakes her head. “Why would you-” she swallows back a cry. “How could you even think that?”

Harry rubs her shoulder and Draco’s eyes follow the movement closely.

“Why would you do that if you’re trying to protect him? Why can’t you come with us? I want him to have a father. You can’t just abandon us.”

Swallowing thickly, she watches his face transform into something cruel and ugly. “I raped you on the daily until you conceived him.”

His face swings to one side where she slapped him. Again, there’s that reaction to that word again. She watches him breathless and covers her mouth in surprise again.

“You did that because a small part of you remembers exactly what I was like. Just remember, the vaginal tearing wasn’t from childbirth, dear. We took your memory so you’d be more receptive to me trying for the spare to my heir.”

Hermione stares at him in open shock. Who is this man? She doesn’t recognize him as the boy who managed to be enthusiastic while droll at the same time, that she met at the museum in June last year.

“So you admit it?” Harry sneers.

“We have the Ministry by the balls. I have nothing to fear by telling you. Dumbledore’s life is hanging by a thin thread.” He says meaningfully and Harry looks chilled. “If not for me, get my child out for the sake of the mudblood mother. Pathetic though she is, she’s the best he has available. I’ll transfer payment for services rendered. In one week, a mudblood prisoner will have an outburst of uncontrolled magic in the dungeon’s knocking out our wards.” He hisses and glances down at his wrist. “It’s your one chance to get to the nursery on the second floor, third door on the left from the main staircase. Expect my mother to be there and to put up a fight. Do. Not. Hurt her. Is that understood?”

Harry nods.

“I want an unbreakable vow with Hermione as witness that you will not leave decisions about this raid up to Dumbledore. The old man is foolish and will get it into his head to try to do more than get Phoenix out. You have permission to take my son and reunite him permanently with his mother. That is all. I will give you a date and time as soon as we complete the oath.”

“But… what about our son? How will he ever know you?” Hermione hates the idea of her son never knowing his father. Surely an arsehole for a father has to be better than no father at all?

Draco focuses cold eyes back on her. “I never liked your mouth hole. I always preferred your tight, hot, wet cunt. It was like having a beautiful, vagina shaped, suction cup around my cock-”

This time, Harry punches him. Draco stumbles back and spits out blood and grins at them maniacally. “Take the boy and get out.”

Moments after the unbreakable vow is done, Draco gives December 20th at precisely 21:42 with a window of eight minutes before he disappears into thin air with a crack.

Not having realize she had been putting up a front in front of him. She had felt incredibly vulnerable already, she feels her insides crumble. With all that she doesn’t know but him talking about the tearing, she feels like he just ripped her spine out of her body. Harry catches her under her arms before she collapses in tears.

“It’s alright, Hermione.” He gently murmurs to her over her tears.

Could she make it through a meeting with the two of them without ending up in tears? What was happening to her son? What had been done to her?

Guiding her to a small cafe around the corner, he orders two coffees and a plate of chips. They take a seat and awkwardly don’t say anything. She probably shouldn’t. Her parents will be expecting her home by now and she is going to be late. But after what just happened, she doesn’t want to be alone. Not when she can’t tell her parents about this. The woman behind the counter calls them up and she notices how the bad lighting makes the woman almost look demonic. In broad daylight, her bone structure hints that she is normally rather attractive. Harry comes back with the coffees and chips and sets them down with a brief smile.

“Oh… I didn’t even offer to pay.” She pulls her purse out.

“Don’t worry about it. I can spare it.” He assures her.

Compared to everything he has done for her tonight, the cost of coffee and chips doesn’t even put a dent in what she owes him.

“I have a son.” Her lower lip trembles as she lets that information sink in. Joy and fear battle for dominance.

Harry smiles softly at her. She can see he is genuinely happy for her.

“I was scared I was losing my mind or that he was dead and I’d lost him. I’ve been living in a dream since I came back and now I know he’s out there, I’m just so scared for him!”

Other customers glance over her way and she lowers down in her seat and uses her hand to hide her emotional state.

“Me and my friends, we’re going to get him back. Alright? We’ll do everything in our power to keep him safe.”

She nods and fights back the tears. “Christ, I can’t stop crying all the time around you. Last thing you need with everything you’re doing. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to begin to pay you back.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Your punch was a lot more satisfying than my slap.” A smidgeon of guilt creeps in that she just condoned violence.

It is worth it to see him chuckle. “It did feel good. I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

“If I’m a witch, why can’t I do magic?”

“You have magic and you have used it. Auror’s have spent years cleaning up after you and all your accidents.”

Her eyes widen with surprise. “You make me sound like an untrained puppy piddling on all the floors. Why doesn’t someone teach me to stop doing that?”

“There was a treaty drawn up after the first wizarding war that banned muggleborns from wizarding Britain. Trying to keep the peace and prejudice has you locked out. Not difficult when you’re so few in the minority by far. There are a little more half-bloods than purebloods, but there really aren’t many muggleborns.” He takes her hand and fixes her in his green eyes. She hadn’t noticed they were green before. His sincerity causes her to hold her breath. “We’re fighting to fix these inequalities, but you really have to stay out of trouble. I’ve lived in wizarding Britain since I was eleven years old. They teach us how to use our magic. And I’m sure you’re just as powerful as me, but you don’t know how to defend yourself. There are very evil, dangerous wizards that would love nothing more than to hurt you. Don’t give them a reason to. I’ve warded your flat and your school as best I can. But don’t you can’t say anything to anyone. Do you understand?”

She nods, feeling a flummoxed by a new round of emotion. Just like that, she leans in and kisses him. He kisses her back, sweet and slow. His lips are soft and she even shaven, the skin around his lips his rough with new growth surfacing. He smells of security and things she wanted when Draco had been describing being with her. He cups her face and deepens the kiss. Her body craves more but with a table with coffee and chips on it, they are discouraged.

The kiss finishes and she feels dizzy. She is falling for this boy hard and fast.

Hermione realizes she is in so much trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: In case anyone is interested, this was what was playing during one of the later scenes in this chapter. Make it holy – The Staves
> 
> Thank you so much for the feedback and kudo's! I really appreciate it! 
> 
> This chapter is a bit steamier at parts, but I'm not expecting to teenagers to be ultra-confident and skilled bed mates. Also, just as a reminder this is slightly AU. Some people are still alive who weren't in the books and some have died. Pieces on the chessboard have changed a little. 
> 
> I don't know if I'll be able to update chapters as quickly as I updated this one. The comments were very motivating, thank you!

**December 16 th 1996**

Standing before the Wizengamot, Theodore Nott Jr has managed to shock his brethren as so few who have come before him have. His drafted proposal is thorough and clever and beyond the ability of a seventeen-year-old in most of their opinions. Most likely because he hadn't developed it on his own. Half of the pureblood Lord’s aren’t surprised. In fact, they look rather chuffed with the whole thing.

Young Nott takes his seat when he finishes, in the place where not too long ago his Death Eater father had sat. It is highly probable that this is Voldemort’s doing but it is halfway promising. The Wizengamot mutter among themselves, unsure what to make of this and whether they should pass the drafted proposal that has been seconded by Warrington as a motion to pass directly into law. There isn’t any time to think it over. In the spirit of reconciliation and good will at Yule, this is hopeful! If they could pass it into law, it is likely they could make adjustments to the details of the law later. The more optimistic members are fearful that when the government reconvenes in a month, the purebloods will have changed their minds. It seems best to take advantage of their temporary insanity.

“The honorable Cornelius Fudge has the floor.” The Speaker of the House announces.

“To be clear, we are discussing pureblood families sponsoring muggleborn witches and wizards into their families as part of the integration of their kind into wizarding Britain. This would go a long way toward minimizing the disruptive influence of muggleborns entering our society, so that we can ease the path for them. I would like to put my support behind this law and expedite it’s passage.” Fudge concludes and takes a seat.

There are chants of support and hands slapping on the backs of the benches in front of them.

Griselda Marchbanks stands up and takes the floor. “I am beholden to point out the self-serving nature of this proposal.” The place falls deathly silent and the member brings forward what hasn’t been spoken openly about in the last fifteen years. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named cursed his followers with hereditary magical infertility. A condition unheard of before has become the bane of purebloods existence. Until three years ago, it was thought impossible to neutralize or rectify until half-blood Jenus Anselworth was born illegitimately from his pureblood father and his muggleborn mother began to have his first outbursts of accidental magic at age five. Currently the child has been given to the Rosier family and seeking recognition as a pureblood, despite his muggleborn mother who has been deprived of all memory of her child. Mere weeks after this event, it would appear a Phoenix Granger was conceived between his pureblood father, underage Draco Malfoy and underage Hermione Granger. A muggleborn witch well known to aurors for being especially problematic as she has displayed spectacular feats of outbursts of accidental magic. A particularly powerful and potent young witch most likely has handed the Malfoy’s a particularly powerful young heir. Essentially, we would be handing these poor muggleborns over to pureblood families as heifers for the production of heirs. I’m afraid, I cannot support this proposal or rushing this through as law as I do not believe the spirit is in the best interests of muggleborns.”

Arguing breaks out in the Wizengamot and debate continues for hours but eventually passes twenty-five to twenty-one.

**December 21 st 1996**

Four days before Christmas and London isn’t looking very Christmas like. Nine degrees celsius with a damp wind and overcast sky, it is the stuff of pasty white skin. What most Londoner’s wouldn’t do for a splash of vitamin D during winter months like this? Not cold enough for anything fun to happen but a long way from the beautiful, mild summer days of months ago.

Pulling her coat tighter around her, Hermione woke up already feeling the fatigued. She couldn’t fall asleep until well after midnight and woke up after five in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. Anticipating that Harry will contact her today and she would have her son back, there wasn’t any hope of her wrestling control over her nerves.

A horn blares down the road and she glares at the man in the ford fiat honking at a moped making a turn. Who blasts their horn at seven in the morning on a Saturday? Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she turns back to the road, where she is standing, waiting outside her building. She sucks in a breath when a young man with red hair and a mountain of freckles standing directly in front of her. She jerks back, he is standing much too close to her.

“What’s your name?” He asks her.

“I’m sorry,” she chuckles awkwardly. “That isn’t… you don’t just…” she shakes her head. “You can’t approach strange girls and just ask their names.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “I’m looking for Hermione. Are you her?”

“You’re one of Harry’s friends?” Her eyes light up.

He smiles and holds out his hand. “Ron.”

She accepts his hand and nearly shakes him out of his skin with her enthusiasm. “Did you get him?”

He smiles. “We have him.”

She throws her arms around his neck and laughs gleefully. He laughs and returns the hug with an easy manner.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Would you like to see him?”

Everything she has learned tells her that she shouldn’t be leaving with a strange young man but there isn’t a chance in hell she is going to miss out on the opportunity to see her baby. “Yes!”

He pulls out a wand and a small light appears and then he pulls a small broom out of his pocket and charms it. It blows up to full size before her surprised eyes. Fear clutches her chest and she shakes her head.

“Oh no, you’re not implying we’re flying a broom?”

“I’m not implying anything. We’re flying on my broom if you want to see your son.”

Hermione is hardly in any place to refuse him. “Held up by a stick?”

“I promise my stick’s solid,” he winks at her and hops on offering the space in front of him. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall off.

“You’re making rather grand claims.” She narrows her eyes at his double entendre and pokes back at him with her own.

He grins widely at her and she rolls her eyes and relents. Onto the broom it is.

He pushes off and she starts slipping off to one side without the ground to support her feet. The teenage wizard easily keeps her in place and she grips his stick so tightly her knuckles are white. She can’t look.

When they reach their destination, Ron taps a wall and a houses pull apart like an accordion, revealing a grimy old house. The whole thing looks rather dodgy but in for a penny, in for a pound. Hermione follows him up the steps of the row house and follows him inside. Following him down the hall of the dour house, Ron enters a kitchen where a red haired woman with a warm smile turns and greets them with a smile and a chubby baby on her hip.

Hermione is frozen to the spot for a moment. He is real. Phoenix is real and he is right in front of her. She can sense other people in the room and her heart is in her throat. He is the most beautiful creature she has ever seen in her whole life.

She looks at the woman for permission. “Can I…?”

The older woman cheerfully hands him over. “Of course, dear!”

This is probably the best Christmas present Hermione will ever receive in her life. He feels solid and warm in her arms and she has the ghost of a memory of him in her arms. The baby had been smaller, but it is vaguely familiar. He has blond hair and dark grayish blue eyes, as though in the process still of shifting. But his skin is that little bit darker than Draco’s. His chin is as pointy as his too but she recognizes the shape of her own eyes and brow ridge in his.

Tears filling her eyes, she laughs and clutches him against her. She looks around and sees Harry.

“Oh my God, Harry! You did it!” But as she looks at him and the rest of the people in the room, she senses something wrong. “What went wrong?”

“Oh don’t you worry about it, luv. We knew what we were risking when we went in.” A man with dark black hair attempts to reassure her.

That is not reassuring to hear. She wishes she felt bad for them but she is just too happy for herself to feel anymore than a little guilty for her own joy. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” She can only assume they lost someone in the raid.

“Don’t be.” A young woman tells her. “Muggle-born’s aren’t responsible for any of this.”

After introductions are made, they sit down to a late breakfast. Having already eaten, Hermione sits and enjoys her son standing in her lap, eying her a little skeptically. He is surprisingly quiet with a serious expression and intelligent eyes. She wonders who this Voldemort is and what had happened to teach a seven-month-old how to be quiet? There’s something particularly sad about it.

Chubby little hands soon start grabbing at her hair with a naughty grin. Hermione senses someone has told him not to do this, maybe Draco’s mother?

“Noooo…” she laughs and attempts to disentangle those little fingers from her curls. “I can’t wait to bring you home and show you to Mum and Dad!” Her face feels as though it might split from smiling, her cheeks are sore. Phoenix grins back at her. A part of her is a little concerned he is deaf or hard of hearing but she remembers meeting a deaf child years ago and the little girl had vocalized unintentionally all the time.

“We need to talk about that.” Harry goes to the doorway and gestures for her to follow.

She looks around the room and sees that all of them stopped smiling already. Did she say something wrong? Nervous, she follows him across the hall to what was probably once a parlour. She takes a seat on a dusty settee and presses kisses into Phoenix’s neck. Her little boy makes breathy sounds indicating laughter without using his voice.

“You’re ticklish are you?” She sniffs like a curious dog and presses more snuffling kisses into his neck and he squirms with a giant smile on his face.

She is enjoying her son too much to hear what Harry has to say. She doesn’t want to hear what bad news he has.

“Hermione,” he interrupts her and gives a brief kiss to Phoenix adorable face before looking at the young man again. Because she can’t bring to give him any less respect than to think of him as a man after he just pulled off getting her son back to her. “The Statute of Secrecy and it’s amendments are still in place. A new law is coming into place. Lucius Malfoy is sponsoring you for integration into wizarding society as mother of Phoenix Malfoy. In a couple of weeks, you have the option of showing up at the Ministry of Magic with your son and having a legal place in wizarding Britain within the Malfoy family.”

She shakes her head vigorously.

“Wait, you haven’t heard your other options. I want you to understand what you are agreeing to.” He waits for her acknowledgement. She is wary to hear more, but she acquiesces. “You can go home, but you can’t bring Phoenix with you. Or you we can keep you in one of our safe houses, where you would remain until the laws improve or Phoenix comes of age. Whichever happens first.”

“Why can’t one of you sponsor me?”

Phoenix grabs for her lip and playfully captures his entire hand in her mouth. “Nom, nom, nom.”

The baby rips his hand away and shakes with excitement and laughter, his voice, still eerily silent.

“As the law is currently drafted, you would need to be eleven years old or under with a pureblood family ready to sponsor you as guardians for your entry into our education system. Or already have a child with a pureblood, who are willing to keep you.”

“I don’t want him to grow up in hiding but I can’t go back to the Malfoy’s.” Phoenix starts trying to climb into the neck of her jumper and she tries to discourage him by playfully snapping her teeth at his hand. As though threatening to eat it. His eyes flash with amusement and Harry watches mournfully. “Even if I left him with you, he would still be in hiding anyway, wouldn’t he?”

Harry shakes his head. “We would be putting him up for legal adoption, far away from Britain. It’s so very rare for a child from magical parents with a high possibility of being magical himself to be put up for adoption. He would be snapped up in a matter of minutes. The Malfoy’s would have no way of finding him. You’re trapped in Britain. Phoenix is easy to get out.”

Even Phoenix’ father doesn’t think it’s safe to be the Malfoy home. Britain isn’t a safe place for him to be. Not in the middle of a war. As she tries to smile at him, her heart breaks at the thought of giving him up again. What can she give her beautiful baby? She is seventeen years old. She hasn’t completed her education. She doesn’t have a wizarding education to speak of. She doesn’t have any money. She would be wholly dependent on Harry and these strangers to take care of the two of them. If she could, she would bring Phoenix home to her parents and they would support her while she completed her education and she would eventually get a career and raise him on her own.

How long would she be financially dependent on Harry and his friends?

“How long do you think this war is going to drag out for?”

“I’m sorry, we’re not even close to winning. We have a lot to dismantle yet.” He admits.

How long would her baby be kept in a safe house, isolated from society?

It is funny to Hermione how parents want their children to have a normal childhood and most of those children will grow wishing to be abnormal in a way that makes them stand out and be special. She wants to give him a childhood with friends his own age to bond with. Chances to learn how to deal with social adversity. Chances to get a real education that will be relevant to his ability to navigate the adult world. There are so many things she wants to give him that he wouldn’t be able to have in a safe house. But is she strong enough to give him up?

Phoenix has a hold of here hair again and shoves a handful of it in his mouth even as she battles to get it back. Harry laughs and moves in to help her wrestle the baby to release her. They hear Phoenix gurgle for the first time and she looks up when Phoenix releases her hair. Harry is crouching beside her holding Phoenix with her and her heart stops and then beats faster to make up for the missed beat. Their eyes connect and she looks at him and looks at Phoenix and she can see it and she can feel it. Safe house or not, she can imagine being a family with Harry.

Only Harry is around her age. What would he want with another man’s child and an inferior witch who leaves a mess of accidental magic floating behind her and the baggage of an ex like Draco?

His lips meet hers and Hermione can hardly bare it. He feels, smells and tastes incredible and she wants to do this with him. But who is she to Harry?

He pulls back and watches her closely for her reaction.

“Why?” She asks, as Phoenix watches the scene curiously with those serious eyes again.

“Why what?” Harry is confused by her question.

“What could you possibly see in me?”

“Well, you’re beautiful for one.” He leans in and pecks her on the lips again. “The way you look at me, I feel like I want to aspire to the be the man you seem to see. I wish I could be that man.” He smiles at her. “And watching you as a mother, you haven’t even been at it a day and you take to it so naturally. You’re smart and there’s so much I more I want to learn about you. You’re unexpected and surprise me all the time. I’d have to be blind to miss you.”

Phoenix starts trying to crawl up into her jumper and she yelps with surprise at the intimacy of the touch from his chubby hands. Hermione and Harry laugh.

“If we go to the safe house, I don’t have any money. And you said I can’t defend myself, so I can’t help you. You’re taking on another burden in the middle of a war. Is that wise?”

“What are we even doing if not to protect people like you two?” Harry counters. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. I should tell you that all of the choices are fair and right and there isn’t a right choice. But I won’t lie to you. I want you to come with us to a safe house. I’m hoping to kiss you again only with someone holding Phoenix for us.” He grins at her like a naughty school boy and she can’t resist smiling back at him.

It is foolish and presumptuous to impress her survival upon Harry and his friends after everything they’ve done. But she can’t resist the chance to stay with Phoenix and maybe pursue more with Harry. The truth is, she just doesn’t have it in her to give up Phoenix. The unselfish thing to do would be to let him go. Let him find a safe home. But Hermione realizes she is just too selfish to do it. She can’t let go of him. Not when she only just got him back. How terrible is it to realize that Draco, the complete git, isn’t as selfish as her. He was able to give up their son when she couldn’t? She doesn’t know how he did it now that she is in a similar place to him.

What about her parents? She would be abandoning them. They lost her for a year. How could she do that to them again? Haven’t they been through enough? She will have to find a way to contact them. She will have to let them know that she is safe and tell them about Phoenix. Or maybe they could come to the safe house too? No, just how many could she impose on these people? She dare not even ask.

“Please accept me and Phoenix in your safe house.” She finally responds and Harry pulls Hermione and Phoenix up from the settee and holds them against him as he kisses her. Phoenix scowls and smacks Harry’s shoulder. When that doesn’t get Harry to stop kissing his mother, Phoenix babbles in an annoyed tone.

Hermione has a good feeling about this. This could work.

**January 10 th 1996**

“This isn’t working.” Hermione huffs as she battles to open the pushchair to take Phoenix out. The poor child is bundled up and silently crying behind her as she stands by the front door. Frustrated, she gives up on the pushchair and picks Phoenix up and walks out without it. Phoenix tears stop and he clings to her. She has come to learn that one doesn’t carry Phoenix so much as lift him up and he hangs on like a baby monkey. His strong little hands hold onto her clothing and shoulder and his thighs squeeze around her hip. It makes it so that it isn’t such a hardship as her arms barely get tired at all. The boy is a little monkey. He climbs everything. His upper body is shockingly strong and can hold his own weight to a degree that Hermione doesn’t know she ever could.

As she walks out, she wonders why Molly insisted she take the pushchair. The safe house is in the woods. What use would a pushchair be out here? But Molly has given advice that didn’t make sense before until she learned that it was in some way charmed. Hermione will have to ask her about it later.

It is another dreary day but the fresh air is good. They have been cooped up in the cottage for an entire week and she has decided that they need to go for a walk. A part of her has been just too afraid to venture outside. A safe house is only as safe as your occupation of it. Once she leaves it, she knows there aren’t any wards. But they are in the New Forest and hardly anyone strays this far into at this time of year. It isn’t the wilderness but the wards seem to do a good job of keeping non-magical people away. Or muggles as witches and wizards keep calling them.

Phoenix falls silent and watches his surroundings, enraptured by it all. He reaches for a pine tree and moves in closer for him. She had to give up on the gloves. The baby had reacted positively traumatized to them when he had realized he couldn’t hang onto her wearing them. Cold, chubby little hands snatch at pine needles and rip greedily at them. With absolute fascination, he sniffs at them and then opens his mouth. She taps his hand.

“Not food!” She admonishes him.

He glares indignantly at her and she freezes up. It feels so much like Draco is looking at her for the first time since she saw him at the train station. Phoenix opens his mouth again and Hermione taps his hand again.

“Are you hungry? That’s not food but we can go back and get you something to eat.” She explains even though she doubts he understand many of those words. Hermione isn’t one for baby talk because it feels condescending. She would prefer he learn to understand the adults.

Those serious eyes stare at her for a long time before he releases the pine needles with a suspicious eye. He isn’t happy with her at all but switches his attention elsewhere.

It still disturbs and upsets her just how quiet he is. There aren’t any signs of abuse on him and a healer couldn’t find any signs of magical damage done to his body or history of physical abuse. There aren’t any wards on him or charms or spells or curses. Is he naturally quiet or was this something that had been done to him? It seems unnatural for a baby to be so quiet. If he vocally cries, it is only when he is in pain and it is a god awful sound in that it is loud and especially shrill. But when he cries because he is upset for other reasons, he is eerily quiet for the most part. The occasional soft whimper escapes but he is astoundingly quiet.

It worries her.

Harry went back to school a week ago after spending the Christmas break with her. She misses him already but he has promised to visit during the next break. She remembers with a blush their last time together, their snogging had gone as far as dry humping each other with Phoenix asleep just in the next room. When Molly realized Harry had spent the night in her room, she had given her potion to last three months as a contraceptive while also advising against sex before marriage.

It wasn’t sex but as she had climaxed, she had been surprised how different it had been from her memory of being with Draco at the Savoy. With Draco, there had been very little build up and her orgasm had been brief and almost violent. With Harry, she straddle him while fully clothes as his hands gently explored her body. Pressed against his length, she had bucked against him gently, touch that only just registered with her nub but had been so delicious she had shivered. He had watched her with wide, worshipping eyes and offered words of encouragement telling her how beautiful she looked riding him and how much he loved watching her. She had had full control and it had been a slow, sweet build up unto something soft and lovely and dragged on until she was dizzy from lack of blood flow to the brain. Harry had held her tightly and told her he could watch that again and again and again and still find it awe inspiring.

Afterward, she had wanted to strip Harry down and ride is… well his willy, she remembers with a blush. But Ron’s mother hadn’t been entirely off the mark. Hermione hadn’t forgotten that she didn’t have any contraception and she is already a teenage mother without a way to support her child and relying on other people to financially care for her. When she has asked about it, they have said not to worry about it. But not knowing worries her.

Harry has been so kind and gentle with her. His kisses contain lust but he doesn’t rush her toward anything. He waits for her to give cues and only goes as far as she subtly and not so subtly suggests. As long as Harry isn’t kissing Hermione passionately, Phoenix likes him too. To her surprise, their relationship doesn’t have any of the awkwardness she would have expected.

When Phoenix grip on her begins to ease up and allows her to support his weight, she has learned to take it as a sign it isn’t just his arms and legs getting tired but that he could do with a nap. If she can coax him into taking a nap. She has read about and seen babies taking naps, but her obstinate boy detests sleep. Every day, they battle over nap time. She has tried one new thing each time and tried to be consistent for a few days to see what sticks. But he hasn’t voluntarily gone down for a nap yet. If she puts him down in the cot, he climbs vertical bars out. He can barely crawl and can’t walk, but the baby can climb like it’s his job. The closest he gets to a nap, is falling asleep, face first, in his dinner in the evening. The day is obviously too long for him, but he just won’t give up until his body gives out on him. As frustrating at it is, he doesn’t whine. He growls sometimes when he is mad and if he falls over and hurts himself, he screams as though someone had applied the cruciatus curse to him. But when he gets tired, he just becomes more stubborn and eventually, passes out from sheer exhaustion.

When she puts him down for his nap after their walk in the woods, Hermione isn’t surprised that Phoenix puts up a fight. He won’t let go of her at first and he reminds her of a baby octopus. As soon as she gets one arm or leg or hand off her, he latches on with the others. She can hang him from her body hovering over the cot without holding him and he just growls in disagreement. Why had no one ever told her some babies do this?

Eventually, she catches him off guard and releases herself of him. But then he sets to work climbing up the rails of the cot.

“Why can you do that but struggle with crawling?” Hermione asks Phoenix plaintively.

The boy looks up with a serious expression, as though asking her why does she insist on asking stupid questions. He is Draco’s son. He has those passing moments when she is sure that he is looking condescendingly at her. As though to say, of course he is brilliant, he’s a Malfoy. She had assumed Draco had been raised to down at people, but Phoenix has managed to startle a good number of guests with his precocious haughtiness. How does a baby know how to send a patronizing smirk? It should probably bother her. It puts Ron’s teeth on edge, but Harry and Sirius have laughed.

When he swings his leg over the top bar, Phoenix releases a victorious grunt before she plucks him up from behind and deposits him directly back into the cot. If looks could kill, Phoenix would have killed her by his young mother several times over. As stubborn as Phoenix is, Hermione is right up there with him.

If she went to bed that night after a long day in battle with her son, she may have shed a few frustrated tears. But he slept at least six hours straight from dinner time, ate and played for a bit before dawn, then passed out for another six hours straight. She took refuge in the fact that he slept for long periods and not long after, Phoenix had trained his mother to stop trying to make him take naps.

Naps are for the weak.

**February 14 th 1997**

It is freezing cold and raining. After Hermione’s first attempt to use Molly’s old pushchair, the witch had gone through some of the wands they had gotten off Death Eaters during the Malfoy Manor raid. Hermione had selected cherrywood wand and begun lessons. Molly focused mostly on household charms (with promises of defense and attack when these are mastered), including a ‘waking up’ the pushchair. It hadn’t worked because it is charmed. The wheels changing in shape, size and suspension to keep the baby level as the pushchair goes over rough terrain.

As the miserable weather freezes Hermione to the core, Phoenix stares out from his pushchair, slapping the rain cover joyfully. Hermione’s rain mac leaves much to be desired as it isn’t nearly as waterproof as the name would suggest.

Hermione had traveled further afield to send a letter to her parents, two towns away from New Forest so that the first address takes it to a wrong address and the return address is to her parents. She hopes it causes enough confusion that her parents get the letter but can’t localize where the letter originated precisely. She includes a (muggle) photo of Phoenix and assurances of her safety. It isn’t much but she can’t leave them in the dark indefinitely. Her parents should know that she isn’t being abused and impregnated all over again.

The only problem with the mailing part of this plan is that it had meant she arrives back at the cottage rather late and has a particularly large amount of walking in the rain to do. By the time she gets back, the mud gathered up on her shoes has created new mud boots encasing her shoes. And Phoenix has fallen asleep in his pushchair before she can make dinner.

She is just sitting down to her dinner, hair still wet, dry clothes on but shivering, when Harry comes through the floo. Her heart leaps and butterflies do things that will make her casserole difficult to eat. How do they get through the floo without burning themselves when there is a good fire burning away?

“I wasn’t expecting you.” She smiles at him and then realizes that wasn’t the most welcoming thing to say.

He seems unusually jittery and nervous but smiles back. Then he notices her hair and blue lips. “What happened?”

“Got caught in the rain.” She hugs him and is surprised by just how hot his body feels against her. A shiver runs through. She smirks and slips her cold hands into his robes and up under his shirt. Hermione is rewarded with a soft, high pitched, squeak from Harry.

“Gods! Your hands are cold.” He gamely holds still for her with a pained expression on his face as he allows her to warm her hands on him.

Leaning into him, she buries her face in his shoulder and enjoys the heat and scent and feel of him. She was mostly being cheeky when she had put her hands on him. Only, now that she is pressed against him, she is feeling his bare torso for the first time. The mood shifts in the room and she leans back to look at him.

“Warm me up?” She knows he can’t stay long. Harry drops in when he can but this isn’t a school holiday. If he is here, it is because Dumbledore allowed him to come through for a quick visit. They can’t abuse that privilege. Or at least, they shouldn’t. He has checked she is okay, he should be leaving now. But she doesn’t want him to.

Frozen to the spot, Harry watches her with hungry eyes but doesn’t say or do anything. He knows what she knows.

Isolated in the cottage without anyone to talk to for two or three days at a time, she isn’t just hungry with lust but has a deep longing for comfort and human contact more than a infant can provide. She leans in and kisses him and he takes it as his signal.

“Absolutely!” He says against her lips and wraps himself around her.

Her hands push up under his shirt and he raises his arms so that his shirt, jumper and school robe all go up with her motion. It works smoothly until his wrists are trapped in his sleeves and Hermione couldn’t be happier. With a naughty grin, she kisses him hard and her hands go to his buckle. The two of them are panting loudly as she hurries to get his trousers down and her own clothes off. Standing back to admire him while still in her underwear she feels her stomach clench at the sight. His tangled robes act as a rope holding his arms back, his bare chest reveals the lines of light muscle one would expect to see from an athlete, his erection cheerfully stands at attention for her, and his toned legs hold promises of thrusts that she greedily wants to be at the receiving end of.

“We should stop.” Harry announces reluctantly.

Hermione steps up to him whispers in his ear. “I need you.”

He groans. “Who am I to deny you?” He kisses down her neck and she nudges him down to the floor on the old fur rug that she hadn’t appreciated when she moved in. He lies flat and she takes a moment to enjoy the view before she straddles him.

Grinding against his length, she raises her chin and closes her eyes as she rolls her hips against him. Languidly enjoying the subtle nuances of the veins pressed along her damp folds, she moans and leans back and rests her hands on his powerful thighs.

There is this fearless woman that Harry brings out in her that she enjoys so much. But she is still hesitant to tell him what she wants him to do next.

“Touch it?” She dislikes how high and breathy she sounds. She can’t look at him even as she rolls against him.

“Touch what?” His voice is low with arousal.

“My…” unwilling to say it, she reaches for his hand but is reminded of the predicament she left him in. His hands are stuck at his sides. She grins with amusement and then says: “Next time, you’ll do this. Watch.”

Enjoying his wide-eyed expression, she presses her thumb down against the hood of her nub and strokes it as she would if she were alone. Moving in time with her hips, a shudder trails down her back. Worked up in no time, she looks down at him and sees hunger.

“Can I?” She looks down between them meaningfully.

“I thought you’d never bloody ask.” To her surprise, he rips his hands from his sleeves and causes her to yelp lifting her hips up. Her hands fall forward to catch herself against his chest. Something feels a little off, but she throws caution aside.

The two of them watch each other’s faces as she slowly reaches between them and lines him up. His eyes roll back as he slowly inches her down on him. For all the promise she had felt, his entrance feels as foreign and intrusive as her memory of Draco. That flash of discomfort has her pushing his hands down and her taking her weight on her knees. It is too similar to Draco holding her hips and leaning back on his heels as he pulled around by her hips.

Surprised, Harry opens his eyes and watches her. “Do you want to stop?” He offers.

Leaning down, she captures his lips as sweetly and warmly as she can pour herself into him. “Don’t lift me up.” She cautions him and then begins to slide herself up on him. As she regains control over the experience, he feels less intrusive and more inviting. She slowly sinks down until he is fully embedded inside of her. This is more like she pictured. Need thrums through her and she starts bouncing enthusiastically on top of him. Taking his thumb, she urges him toward her nub.

“I won’t last long with you… doing that.” He warns her.

That information spurs her forward and as good as his warning, he grunts and his hips buck up against hers. Hermione manages to catch a small orgasm off the end of his but mostly, she is happy and relieved to have stepped over the chasm of fear and need that had been taunting her for weeks.

“I’m sorry,” Harry strokes her back.

She grins down at him. “And here I was trying to decide if there’s a polite way to say thank you after sex.”

He chuckles. “You’re not disappointed? I didn’t last very long. I want to go again but I’ve been here too long already.”

Hermione kisses him and can tell him in all truth: “You were just what I wanted. It was perfect for our first run at it.”

There is a thump from upstairs indicating that Phoenix has escaped his cot again. Hermione kisses Harry once more.

“I better get to that but you warmed me right up.” She jokes as she pulls on her pajamas.

Unsure what to say, he smiles softly at her. 

They kiss a quick goodbye as he finishes untangling his clothes and he gets dressed while she runs upstairs to check in on Phoenix. She hadn’t realized she had been getting herself worked up about having sex, but now they’ve had it, she is relieved to know that she can make this work. It had been daunting to think how she might screw it up but she had been unwilling to go without. She wanted Harry.

Harry heroically manages to visit Hermione five out of the seven following nights. By the end of the week, they move together with passion, efficiency and a comforting familiarity surprising for the short time they have known each other. And he teaches her the spell to keep dry in the rain and a disillusionment spell so muggles won’t notice what looks like a perpetual umbrella following her around.

**March 1 st 1997**

“You’re not getting away that easily!” Hermione snatches Phoenix up from where he is climbing up the baby gate at the top of the stairs.

The cottage is just as tiny as the name suggests. The front door opens to stairs straight ahead and to the right into a room with a small fireplace, two seat settee and small kitchen. There isn’t space for a dining area. Entering from the front door, to the left is an even smaller room, the bathroom. It is the room directly underneath Phoenix nursery, which is a tiny space. Above the living room and kitchen, is Hermione’s room. The ceilings are low and the walls are thick and if they had been there a decade before, it would have still had a thatched roof. The walls are painted in a traditional lime with a cheery yellow tone.

As small as the cottage is, it has a comforting, cheery atmosphere hard earned in a British winter. A perfect fit for the two of them, Hermione finds it evokes feelings of security and peace. She has little to focus on besides her son. Molly and Harry are their most frequent visitors. Most of the men from the Order of the Phoenix (the name of their rebel group amuses a few of them), are prone to smack their foreheads into some of the doorframes and are perhaps reluctant to visit. But it is all just the right height for five foot five.

With Phoenix on her hip, Hermione is halfway downstairs when she feels the cottage shake for the first time. Wary, she frowns, unsure what to make of it. The cottage shakes harder this time and she wonders if it is an earthquake, but shouldn’t the whole ground shake?

The cottage shakes again and then the front door blasts open. Clutching her son to her chest, she turns to run when she is struck by a hex from behind. She cries out in pain and looks over her shoulder, shielding her son with her body.

“Miss Granger,” a voice that she doesn’t know purrs in a familiar tone. “It’s been too long.” She sees a man in his early forties with long blond hair smirking up at her. Two men in black robes wearing masks, stand either side of him.

“Too long? Do I know you?”

A smug expression adorns his face. “It would appear my son’s obliviation spell was done well.” He leans his head to one side, as though to gain a better look at her son. “My Grandson is doing well, I see.”

Her wand is downstairs but she her only attack spell is the knockback jinx. Hermione is only just starting to learn how to use her magic.

“Please don’t take him! Please!” She pleads with Mr Malfoy.

“It’s alright,” he intones comfort mockingly. “We’re taking both of you.”


End file.
